Steve Jones is the editor of SQLServerCentral.com and visits a wide variety of data related topics in his daily editorial. Steve has spent years working as a DBA and general purpose Windows administrator, primarily working with SQL Server since it was ported from Sybase in 1990. You can follow Steve on Twitter at twitter.com/way0utwest

Archives: February 2013

Attaching an MDF file without an LDF file can be a little tricky. I had to go through this recently when I downloaded the AdventureWorks2008R2 database, which was just an MDF file. I know I’ve done this before, but I had to stop and look things up, which means… Read more

In a little over a week, SQL Saturday #187 takes place in Richmond, VA. I’m looking forward to going back as I attended school not too far from there (Charlottesville), and even worked on the West side of Richmond for a time. My brother lives in MD and my mother… Read more

I’m not sure I love this advice on slide design, but some of it makes sense. Much too often I see people putting lots of information on slide decks, as though readers will be studying the slides. I am working to reduce the amount of letters or “data” on… Read more

Actually I’m off to Bellevue this week for the annual MVP Summit that Microsoft puts on each year. This is a conference, with over 1000 MVPs attending where we get the chance to hear presentations and interact with the developers in our particular areas. I’ll be in downtown Bellevue for… Read more

There are a number of articles on dealing with the insertion of binary data into SQL Server using BULK INSERT, OPENROWSET, and even Java. However I saw someone asking recently how to insert data dynamically and thought that was an interesting question.

This past weekend was the first SQL Saturday in New Mexico. I had written about our trip down last week, with a few fellow Coloradan’s that were speaking at the event. We drove to Taos on Thursday and stayed the night. Friday we skiied, and had a great time.… Read more

It’s not too hot, it can be fun, and after a full day of SQL Server learning, there are lots of things to do. I’m heading back to Las Vegas in April to speak at the new SQL Intersection event. It’s in conjunction with DevIntersection, and it’s at the… Read more

I installed Windows 8 recently and needed to activate it. I didn’t do this on the install since I didn’t have an Internet connection when I first set things up. This is a hardwired desktop, and I had to move it to my office to plug it in. However I… Read more